As exemplified in Lane U.S. Pat. No. 4,766,609, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,555,569, a protective helmet, such as a firefighter's helmet, has a hard shell having a dome portion and having a rim portion, which projects outwardly from the dome portion and which from a wearer's viewpoint has a front region, two side regions, and a back region.
Commonly, the protective helmet is equipped with an eye protector, either a face shield that protects not only a wearer's eyes but also other portions of the wearer's face or a pair of goggles that protect a wearer's eyes. Commonly, if the eye protector is a face shield, the face shield is hinged to the hard shell of the protective helmet via a pair of hinges mounted to such shell, one hinge on each side, in a manner exemplified in Lane U.S. Pat. No. 4,766,609. Commonly, if the eye protector is a pair of goggles, a pair of ribbons are used to tie the pair of goggles to the hard shell of the protective helmet.
Numerous examples of firefighters' helmets equipped with face shields or with goggles are offered in the 1998 Catalog of Morning Pride Manufacturing, Inc. of Dayton, Ohio. Similar helmets equipped similarly are worn by rescue workers and others.
In a firefighting environment, a face shield or a pair of goggles tends to become soiled with soot from unburned carbon particles, which tend to be very difficult to clean from a face shield or from a pair of goggles. When it is necessary for a firefighter to wear a face shield or a pair of goggles, soiling from soot may be then unavoidable.
A need has arisen, to this invention is addressed, to protect a face shield or a pair of goggles against soiling from soot when it is unnecessary for a firefighter to wear the face shield or the pair of goggles.